Normal forms for nonintegrable almost CR structures (Q2903087)

The author extends the Chern-Moser costruction of normal forms for CR hypersurfaces to the case of almost CR structures. A first construction is intrinsic. After associating to the almost CR structure the graph of a map \(L:\mathbb{C}_z@>>>\mathbb{C}_{\bar{z}}\oplus \mathbb{C}_w\), he considers the image \(\tilde{L}=(\tilde{L}^{\bar{z}},\tilde{L}^w)\) of the Euler vector \({\sum}z^j\partial/\partial{z}^j\), and proves that a normal form for \(F=\Im{\tilde{L}}^w\), satisfying the Chern-Moser condition and the additional requirement that \(\tilde{L}^z=0\), \(\Re\tilde{L}^w=0\), can be found. These extra conditions are meant to restrict the additional parameters coming from non integrability. This method also provides partial normal forms in arbitrary CR codimension and without non degeneracy conditions, so that it also applies to almost-complex structures. However, the normal form obtained in this way differs from that of Chern-Moser when the almost CR structure is integrable. Thus another construction is proposed, which is based on formal quasi CR embeddings. This notion refers to the behaviour of the Euler vectors of the original manifold and of its realization as a submanifold of \(\mathbb{C}^{n+1}\), providing in a sense a maximally CR embedding. In this case a normal form is obtained in the strongly non degenerate case, which coincides with the one which is classical for integrable embedded CR hypersurfaces. Finally, uniqueness is investigated, using the notion of adapted frames. A main difference here is the role played by the Nijenhuis tensor, on the same foot as the Levi form, making impossible the quadratic approximation which is an essential tool in the original Chern-Moser costruction. Further applications are given to the equivalence problem and to the Lie group structure of the group of CR diffeomorphisms.